Meet the students behind Kansas City's march for tougher gun laws

From neighborhoods in all corners of the Kansas City area, about two dozen students have joined forces to bear witness to a young movement and play a big part in the student-led fight for stricter gun laws.

For the last month, their fear about gun violence and whether it could come to their schools brought them together once or twice a week for planning sessions at the Plaza Library.

There, the students with adult support have prepared to protest and get, friends, family, teachers, and politicians to attend a rally and march against gun violence in Kansas City at noon Saturday.

"Most of us are from different schools, different backgrounds with different experiences, but we all agree that we can come together for change. And that is why we are here," said Nick Clark, an Olathe East High School student who attended a planning meeting earlier this week.

On March 14, these students joined thousands of other young people in Kansas City and around the country in National Walkout Day, inspired by the activist survivors of the Valentine's Day mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Seventeen students and teachers were killed by a 19-year-old gunman who entered the school wielding a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle.

Kansas City students said they stand in solidarity with the shooting survivors. And for some it's more personal.

Some were drawn to stand against gun violence because they're fed up with its regular presence in their lives: It has taken friends, schoolmates, family members, neighbors.

Genesis Garcia-Flores fought back tears as she talked about her school friend, her wrestling buddy, who did not show up for a wrestling practice one Saturday morning recently. He was found shot to death at a laundry mat where he worked.

"It hurt my soul," said Garcia-Flores, a senior at J. C. Harmon High School. "He was like a brother to me, such a great guy."

She said that every year since her freshman year "we have lost someone from our school to gun violence. By my senior year we are just fed up. They call in the counselors. They tell us the same things every time. It is not helping. We need to speak up."

So Garcia-Flores has been attending the planning meetings, lending her ideas about what the event should look like. On Monday night she was laminating photos sent from around the area of people killed by gun violence here. She also laminated the photos of each of the 17 killed in the Parkland shooting.

"It makes me sad," Garcia-Flores said.

Mahryn Barron, a University of Missouri-Kansas City creative writing major, was born in Colorado in 1999, the year Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot to death 12 students and one teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. Twenty-one others were injured that day. Columbine was the fourth most deadly U.S. school shooting in recent history until Parkland, which took its place.

"My entire life has been in the shadow of gun violence, " said Barron. "It's to the point of being a part of my reality for my entire existence."

It's why on Feb. 24, two weeks following the Parkland shooting, Barron and about about 50 others left a peace rally at the Country Club Plaza to talk about organizing a "March For Our Lives" this Saturday in Kansas City. Most heard about the meeting on social media.

Around a table at the nearby Winsteads Restaurant, the first Kansas City march plans were made among people from non-profit and activist groups who wanted to help the students. Through a Go-Fund-Me account with more 230 donations, more than $7,000 was raised.

With guidance from organizers of the Science March and Women's March 2017, several thousand more in t-shirt sales and other donations were raised for the cause.

On Saturday, while thousands gather for the main "March for Our Lives" in the nation's capital, smaller marches, such as the one in Kansas City, are planned in other cities for those who can't make the trip to Washington.

Supporters here expect about 10,000 will converge on Frank A. Theis Park, just south of the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, for speeches, music and poetry, a rally and a march, featuring photos of area residents killed by gun violence and photos of the 17 killed in Florida. Mayor Sly James, who has been an outspoken supporter of the students, even calling on them to take a public stand against gun violence, will speak at 2 p.m.

Danielle Foster, a student at Lincoln College Preparatory Academy, lost her voice to laryngitis after last Wednesday's national walkout during which she led a group of her schoolmates shouting anti-gun chants through the streets of Kansas City to the steps of City Hall.

Foster's desire to stop violence was realized long before she discovered that if she spoke up people would listen. Seeing a man shot down just blocks from her Northeast Kansas City neighborhood is something Foster says she will never forget. The image has cropped up in her slam poetry and speeches about why she so passionately wants to participate the youth movement to tighten gun laws.

"The problem of gun violence is not just in the schools," Foster said. "It's everywhere. Somebody has to do something about this gun violence."

Lucy Brock, a Shawnee Mission East student, believes she has the answer. At the Kansas City march, she and her best friend Aggie Williams will sing "What About Love" from the Broadway musical "The Color Purple."

"It is basically the love anthem," Brock said. "It is like there is this other powerful weapon in our arsenal that doesn't have any bullets and it's called love. I'm here and Aggie is here to make sure people hear that message."

The two harmonized the song while others designed posters and signs that will line the march perimeter on Saturday.

Both said they favor legislative action that will curb the proliferation of guns.

#Neveragain and #Enoughisenough have become common hash tags associated with the student gun violence movement. Parkland leaders of the national student movement are likely to call on lawmakers in Washington to pass legislation to raise the age for purchasing a weapon, to ban semi-automatic assault weapons, and to create stricter background checks for gun buyers.

The mission statement of the national march organizers sums it up this way: “Not one more. We cannot allow one more child to be shot at school. We cannot allow one more teacher to make a choice to jump in front of a firing assault rifle to save the lives of students. We cannot allow one more family to wait for a call or text that never comes. Our schools are unsafe. Our children and teachers are dying. We must make it our top priority to save these lives.”

Kansas City organizers have the same agenda and said part of Saturday's event will be to insist that everyone 18 and older is registered to vote. They understand, said Missouri Western University freshman Rachel Gonzalez, that "I can use my voice to call for more gun control, but that also means showing up at the polls and voting come election day."

Gonzalez, 19, and among the oldest students planning Kansas City's march, said she believes the students "have a lot of potential to make a difference. I think that since the victims are speaking out that makes a huge difference. "

Shabina Kavimandan, one of the adult helpers with the march, said she agrees this is the time for change.

"This is their movement and they are not going to quit," Kavimandan said. "At this point who out there is not moved by this."

This story was originally published March 21, 2018 at 3:43 PM with the headline "Meet the students behind Kansas City's march for tougher gun laws."